


all my summers for you

by ragesyndrome



Series: safehouse [4]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: 80s Music, Canon Asexual Character, Comfort, Dancing, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Food, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Kissing, M/M, Set in Episodes 159-160 | Scottish Safehouse Period (The Magnus Archives), Slow Dancing, misuse of eldritch beholding (for affection), okayyy here we go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:08:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27522052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragesyndrome/pseuds/ragesyndrome
Summary: "He could get used to this. And he was."I am just obsessed with food and romance and 80s karaoke bops okay. Literally nothing is better.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: safehouse [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1988704
Comments: 34
Kudos: 152





	all my summers for you

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Froot" by Marina and the Diamonds  
> God I want some clementines rn

It was summer, and they had sweet clementines.

The afternoon light filtered through the kitchen window in the way that was Martin’s particular favorite, making the mundane little space diaphanous and gold. Walking home from the market always left him in the mood for a snack. Jon made a ritual of putting groceries away, with the same gravity that he’d used trying to organize Gertrude’s archives, and Martin made a ritual of making himself something to eat. Always twice as much as he wanted, because Jon “didn’t want a snack” but inevitably stole half of Martin’s.

They’d gone to the weekend morning market today rather than the regular store, and he had a sharp cheese and fresh bread and jalapeno-stuffed olives and clementines. They had called to him all vermillion and lovely, and when Jon’s eyes had first lighted on the netted bag he’d gasped in that quiet, delighted surprise of his and Martin had almost pulled him in for a big kiss in front of the entire market.

They had a better system by now for getting everything back to the house. The first few weeks of carrying awkward brown paper bags up the long hill had been interesting, especially for Martin who’d gotten his fill of watching Jon struggle to talk without being able to flap his hands around for emphasis. They used backpacks now. It made the hike home much easier, and left Jon’s hands free to  _ enunciate _ or whatever, and Martin’s hands free to grab at him when he couldn’t hold back anymore. Who cared if the cows saw him kiss his boyfriend.

He focused now on peeling his first clementine. The sweet citrus smell erupted with the first dig into its flesh, pulling back zest and pulp to reveal the pale orange fruit. Divided it slowly into its neat little sections, waiting before even tasting it himself. Jon moved past him with an armful of greens he wanted to put in the fridge, but Martin hooked an arm around his waist and held him there, offering a wedge of the fruit to him. Jon huffed in false exasperation, set the collard greens and things down to take the clementine.

“What’s it with you and watching me eat?” Jon teased, even as he pushed the fruit against his lips like he was trying to sell it in a magazine before he indulged and bit into it.

Martin rolled his eyes. “You are  _ so _ much worse than me about that,” he pointed out. How Jon cooked nearly every night and liked to make a little presentation of it, folded napkins and garnishes and how he’d sit back and watch Martin take it in. Maybe they both had a thing for this, this watching and being watched in a casual setting, wordless and sometimes touchless attention. He’d lived off it for years, paying attention when Jon’s fingers tapped against a document he was examining, or stretched his legs out when he sat atop his desk to work because he was too queer to just sit normally in a chair all day, or leaned bodily back and pushed his greying hair out of his face like loose curls were the source of all his problems. There was a devotion in watching and doing nothing. For so long Martin had imagined himself a conduit of yearning itself. If there had been an entity of gay longing it surely would have claimed him. He could have feasted all his life on just the act of wanting without having.

Then again, Jon leaned heavier into Martin and kissed his scalp before swiping several more orange slices, and Martin felt  _ so _ , just so much _. _ Just sitting in a bright little kitchen with  _ Jonathan Sims _ almost half in his lap and he went for a few olives and thought about how fucking surreal it all was. Jon bounced out of his arms to resume his organizing, but would keep bouncing back in for a kiss or a bite of fruit.

He could get used to this. And he  _ was _ .

“Do you think everyone’s okay?” he whispered in the dark. Jon held his hands firmly, running a thumb down Martin’s wrist in circles the way he always liked to do.

Jon took a deep sigh that seemed to shake him to his bones. He didn’t sleep these days, but it was not for a lack of tiredness. “I don’t know,” he admitted wearily. “I hope so.”

Martin was glad it was too dark for them to see each other. Sometimes it was too intense. Sometimes he needed the blind comfort of being held and telling each other lies about their relative safety.

In his dream, Martin saw himself sleeping. Saw Jon’s hands as if they were his own, slender and brown and scarred, tangling into red brown curls and tracing freckles. Saw the creeping red light paint Martin’s own silhouette in fire. It certainly felt strange, this out-of-body experience or whatever it was, but it was not unlovely. He felt  _ safe _ . Warm. Beloved. For a moment he was Jon and he felt the burgeoning affection in Jon’s chest as his own and then he was Martin again and felt it radiating out at him. There was a very old and hollow space carved out of his chest and it almost  _ hurt _ to feel something so soft and kind pushing into it. And yet it was the good kind of hurt. The kind of breaking that became mending.

He woke up to Jon’s eyes gone soft with affection and Martin kissed the lines around his eyes sleepily. He was far too content to hold onto the dream, and the memory of it slipped like water from his mind. Traces of it would come back eventually, barely enough to call it deja vu but enough to make him wonder if it had actually been a dream, or if Jon had accidentally inserted raw unfiltered love directly into his brain via eldritch powers.

If he had, it was certainly lovelier than the last time something had been dropped into his brain like that.

The days were getting just a little shorter and crisper, the weather actually appropriate for the soft jumpers Martin was so fond of. He was made for September mornings like this, before the world actually got cold but when you could smell it coming. He went for longer walks now, Jon tending to join him for the beginning before turning back, apparently lacking a desire for the countryside in the way Martin did. Which was fine; he liked to walk with Jon for a bit and he also liked a bit of alone time.

Jon was with him now, humming in quiet appreciation as Martin pointed out some really good trees. He was a little more fragile in the chill and apparently bought himself some woolen fingerless gloves, which honestly? Was a little too much for Martin to handle.  _ I’m going to love you for the rest of my stupid life, _ he thought desperately, and Jon looked at him and Martin wondered if he’d said it out loud or if Jon had simply Known.

Martin looked over a vendor’s selection of meats. The morning market was emptier today, lulled by some fog and steady grey rain. The mist still had a way with him sometimes, the way it burrowed into his veins and tried to whisper him away. Jon tended to stay closer to him on days like this, perhaps touching him marginally more than he normally would.

“Lovely weather, innit?” The vendor, a middle-aged man named Frank, knew Martin and Jon by name at this point; most people in the area did. It was a small town, and, yeah, two gays moving into the long-unused cottage up the hill drew some attention, but it had been largely welcoming. They chatted for a bit, mostly with Martin just politely listening, because he absolutely knew nothing about farming and had zero commentary to contribute.

“Oh, we don’t eat pork,” said Martin with a wave when Frank started to show him some sort of maple-roasted bacon or something, moving on to look at the chickens instead. He felt Jon freeze then, tilting his head the way he did when a thought overwhelmed him as he stared at Martin. “What?”

“I didn’t know that about you,” said Jon softly. Like it was such a delight for him to be surprised by anything.

“Oh- oh!” Martin realized. “I mean. I would, but, you know. I figured you wouldn’t want it in the house, cause, uh, it’s not, Halaal, right?”

His heart stuttered as Jon smiled at him, slow and soft with those lovely deepening lines around his brown eyes. “Right,” he said. “I mean. I don’t exactly follow all the rules that devoutly. But you’re right. I don’t eat pork. Thank you.” He took Martin’s hand, his whole face glowing as he pressed a quick kiss to his knuckles.

Martin remembered that they were literally in public. Literally in the middle of talking to Frank. Christ. How had the two of them survived in the archives so long literally working alongside each other? No wonder everyone had been making bets on when they’d get together. They had probably been insufferable to be around. He felt himself blush terribly through the rest of the casual chit-chat and he couldn’t stop.

So Daisy actually had a record player. On first glance, she didn’t appear to have any records to go with it, until Martin poked around the bookshelves one day and found a singular vinyl titled  _ 80s Smash Hits. _ One day things were going to be normal and everyone was going to be fine, hopefully, and Martin was going to sit Daisy down and ask very genuinely, what the fuck drove her safehouse-stocking decisions. There was a Bible in the nightstand drawer and the most horrendous back-breaking futon couch in the world and a  _ Live, Laugh, Love _ wall-hanging in the bathroom and, apparently, a best of the 80s vinyl collection as the  _ only _ available music. If the goal had been to make it look like Alice Daisy Tonner would never set foot in the vicinity, she had succeeded. No one could look at the floral wallpaper and dream that this was a place Daisy would feel safe in.

He found suddenly that he quite missed her, actually. Not that he’d ever gotten close or stopped being scared of her, and despite the scar on Jon’s throat he knew that Jon had actually bonded with her quite a bit by the end. It was probably going too far to suggest he’d  _ forgiven _ her, but. Here in a place that felt nothing like her yet was given them by her generosity, with Basira sending statements for Jon and telling them little of what was going on back home, her tone clipped and carefully neutral and staunchly avoiding any prying into Daisy’s whereabouts...

It was. It was a lot.

Jon was in the kitchen doing some early meal prep. It would be some time yet before they could dream of eating dinner, but already the cottage was getting dark, so much earlier now than it had when they’d first come in the summer. At night, when they held each other in the darkness and Martin went to sleep and Jon did… whatever he did all night. In that space, it was easier to indulge in feeling all his anxiety for everyone. To whisper about wondering if Melanie was adjusting okay and where Daisy might be and how Basira must be coping, and, and.

They were finally safe, the two of them, but sometimes it felt to Martin like everyone had paid dearly for it. And sometimes, when Jon went so still Martin was sure he wasn’t breathing (after the coma, it was up for anyone’s debate whether an avatar really needed to breathe anyway), Martin understood that Jon was waiting. That they weren’t out of the woods yet.

But it was barely five p.m. He could not bear to be thinking all these thoughts already, not with all the night still ahead of them. He turned over the vinyl in his shaking hands. As ridiculous a find it was, he wasn’t one to turn his nose up at some B-52s, or Toto, or Bon Jovi or Journey or Queen or ABBA. Like. He was gay. That was literally it. Who was he to get emo when he could, instead, be dancing with his eldritch boyfriend?

He didn’t have to do much to lure Jon out of the kitchen, apparently. Martin was still stood over the record player, swaying a little without getting really into it -  _ Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world -  _ when he felt Jon’s presence very close behind him, the way the hair on his arms stood up deliciously in attention before he even consciously registered the reason.

He turned and Jon’s hands went to his waist, a bit awkwardly but he did always love to rest his hands on Martin’s hips, smiling a bit nervously up at Martin and god fucking christ did he ever stop being so  _ sweet? _ Martin still suffered from the whiplash of it, the total one-eighty from how Jon thought he needed to act professionally to how he apparently wanted to  _ be _ .

“Come on then, dance with me,” said Jon, because Martin still wasn’t moving much.

He wanted his heart to be into it more and he was pretty sure Jon could see that.  _ Don’t Stop Believing _ had never once been a slow dance kind of song but suddenly that was all Martin had in him, and Jon took one hand and led him through it. They fumbled a few times, Martin off his game right now and Jon, well, if Martin was being honest he didn’t expect that Jon was ever especially good at this, but he wasn’t terrible and he  _ was _ so, so warm and lovely it made up for it.

He felt it again, for a second, seeping warmth deposited into his mind. He was sure now that Jon was doing it, and that he wasn’t aware of it at all. For a second he saw himself through Jon’s eyes, the low light bouncing off his face and all the tired love in his own grey brown eyes. He saw himself how  _ Jon _ saw him, reverently soaking in every detail, felt the heavy glow in Jon’s chest and the static buzzing background mantra of  _ love you love you love you love you. _

He blinked back into himself, and took Jon’s scarred and gorgeous face into his hands and kissed him. If he could not insert the intimate and exact knowledge of his love directly into Jon’s brain, he’d have to make up for it with this.

Eventually he didn’t have to fight so hard, coaxed into moving around faster and spinning Jon around the room, exactly like Martin had idly daydreamed about so many times. Maybe he had spent so many years yearning and fantasizing so that he could live through everything now  _ with _ Jon. Maybe they’d have all their summers together.

Jon laughed in his arms and the ice in his chest melted a little more.

The nights grew longer and their little haven here got cozier. Jon was actually halfway decent at making a cup of tea these days. 

How much time did they have, Martin wondered. He liked to think about hibernating for the winter here with Jon, tucked in under the blankets until the world thawed. How long before they were allowed to stop feeling like they’re hiding, how long until they, christ, had to get jobs? Martin could see it happening here, they could just stay and this could be their normal life. How spring would come around again and maybe they’d take a weekend holiday somewhere sunny, and Martin would somehow coax Jon into wearing a Hawaiian shirt just because, and he’d kiss him languidly and everything would taste sweet.

Only. Only sometimes he’d walk into a room and see Jon standing listless, like he forgot where and who he was, only coming back to himself when Martin held his hand. He didn’t like to ask, didn’t like to make things real by saying them out loud, but he knew Jon felt something coming. Knew that, much as he fantasized about all this domestic bliss going unpunished, their luck wasn’t that good. There was no way Elias was done with them.

The mornings were frosty now. Martin stood at the kitchen counter and cut into an apple, dividing it neatly across the plate. He handed a slice to Jon.

**Author's Note:**

> \- Personally hc Jon as Muslim from his mum's side but that he's kinda distanced from it since she died when he was so young. I've had friends who will break so many rules of Islam except for eating pork, and, that idea kinda stuck with me. Anyway hope I did not get anything wrong here.  
> \- The angst snuck in. I swear to god this was supposed to just be pure "they eat fruit and listen to Journey and have a nice time" but the angst snuck in I'm sorry!!  
> \- Please comment ily <333


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